April 22: What Happens When a Ceasefire Expires
The two-week ceasefire expires April 22. Three scenarios for engineering teams with spot workloads in ME regions.
The two-week ceasefire between the US and Iran expires on April 22.
Negotiations in Islamabad collapsed after 21 hours without agreement on April 12. A US naval blockade is now active. Neither side has indicated what happens when the clock runs out.
For engineering teams with workloads in ME-CENTRAL-1 or ME-SOUTH-1, the question is not geopolitical. It is architectural: what does your infrastructure look like on April 23 under each outcome?
Three scenarios and what each means for the spot market
Scenario 1: Hostilities resume
Physical strikes resume on Gulf infrastructure. The confidence band for ME regions, already at wartime suppression levels, does not recover on any near-term timeline. Any workloads still in ME regions or mid-migration face renewed disruption. The suppression cause code moves from "sustained wartime damage" to "active kinetic conflict." Recovery profile: 12 to 24 months minimum.
If you are running spot workloads in US-EAST-1 or EU-WEST-1 as destination regions, watch your suppression delta. Displacement demand does not stop when the news cycle does.
Scenario 2: Ceasefire holds informally without an agreement
The most likely outcome according to international analysts. No formal deal, but no immediate resumption of strikes either. The blockade remains contested. The Strait of Hormuz stays partially restricted. Confidence bands for ME regions remain suppressed because the underlying cause has not resolved.
Engineering teams face an indefinite planning horizon. The worst position to be in.
Scenario 3: A framework agreement is reached
The least likely scenario given the current state of talks. Even if reached, a framework deal does not immediately restore cloud infrastructure. Physical damage to AZs mec1-az2 and mec1-az3 requires reconstruction. The confidence band recovers when suppression rates return to pre-war baselines sustained over a statistically meaningful window. That is a data-driven threshold, not a diplomatic one.
What to watch on April 22
The suppression log at refinex.io/transparency will show you what the data says regardless of what the headlines say. A diplomatic announcement and a recovering confidence band are two different things. They have not moved together during this conflict. There is no reason to expect they will on April 22 either.
Keith Brown is founder of RefineX. The suppression log is public at refinex.io/transparency.
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The data behind this post comes from the RefineX signal engine — running in real time, logging every signal it generates and every one it suppresses. Free to inspect, no account required.
Advisory signals only — not financial or infrastructure advice.